What 800 title and escrow professionals shared about wire fraud, and how they’re fighting it

Here is a common situation. On a Thursday afternoon, a closing coordinator at a title company gets an email from a supposed seller. He says he’s traveling and needs his wire instructions updated before Friday’s closing. Nothing looks off. The coordinator updates the file. When the file disburses the next day, $100,000 in seller proceeds wires from the transaction file, creating a loss in the title company’s escrow account. The issue, though, is that the email was from a fraudster. By Monday, the real seller calls asking about his money. It had never arrived, of course. The fraudster had spoofed his email, swapped in a new account and moved the funds before anyone noticed. This isn’t a one-off attack by a random criminal. Scenarios like this now play out regularly in title and escrow, as organized wire fraud has become one of the most disruptive and consistent risks the industry faces. “We’ve seen the wire fraud threat evolve from opportunistic to industrialized,” said Nate Baker, CEO and co-founder of Qualia, an AI-powered digital real estate closing platform. “Criminal networks have built operations specifically to target the real estate closing process.” Qualia surveyed more than...